Dmitry Kokh
In Soviet times, it was still meteorologists who enlivened the polar station on the Russian island of Koljutschin. Today, the abandoned houses serve as shelters for polar bears. Russian photographer Dmitry Kokh captured the domestic life of the animals on camera.
Sometimes it is coincidence that leads to special discoveries. In the case of Dmitry Kokh, it was bad weather that enabled him to fulfill a long-cherished dream on the island of Kolyuchin in the Chukchi Sea: photographing polar bears.
Actually, the wildlife and underwater photographer from Russia had chosen the Russian Wrangel Island for this. There are only a few places on earth where polar bears can be found in large numbers, writes Kokh im “Guardians”. “Wrangel Island is such a place.” Located far north in the Arctic Ocean, the Unesco-designated island is known as a veritable maternity ward for polar bears, so numerous are the animals there. The island is uninhabited and difficult to access. “Bad for tourists, great for wildlife,” says Kokh.
After almost two years of preparation, the photographer embarked on a trip to Wrangel Island on a small sailing yacht last August. But he should have reached the goal of his dreams before that. “When bad weather was announced one day on our trip, the captain decided to make an unscheduled stopover,” says the photographer. They wanted to seek shelter from the approaching storm on the small island of Kolyuchin.
Kolyuchin is known for the polar weather station that operated there in Soviet times. Although the station closed in 1992, the abandoned village still stands on the island. “The blustery wind, the rain, the neglected buildings – there was something surreal about the scene,” says Kokh. And suddenly they saw something moving behind the windows in the houses. “Someone pulled out binoculars,” he recalls, “and then we saw polar bear heads.” For him as a photographer, it was the perfect backdrop: “The fog, a deserted place and polar bears.”
About 20 animals were in sight at the same time, most of them males, according to Kokh. The females would have stayed with their young rather at the edge of the island. Thanks to a drone equipped with special low-noise propellers, he was able to photograph the bears up close. “Entering the island yourself would have been too dangerous that day.” The animals quickly got used to the drone and after a while practically ignored the unusual buzzing.
The behavior of the polar bears surprised the photographer. Why did they like to visit the buildings so much? He later found answers from Anatoly Kochnev, one of Russia’s most renowned polar bear experts. The biologist had worked in Chukotka and on the island of Koljuchin for many years. Polar bears are naturally very curious. They would therefore always try to get through any unlocked door or window. And the houses also offer shelter to the animals.
The photographer was able to find out something else from the expert, as he continues to write in the “Guardian”. So the bears would only rarely show up in such large numbers on the island. And only if the ice stays close to the coast in summer. That only happens every few years. Then the bears would not migrate further north with the ice as usual, but settle in the abandoned polar station. “We saw evidence of this later when we encountered almost no polar bears on Wrangel Island,” says Kokh.
Today, months later, the photographer still fondly recalls the Kolyuchin bears, especially before falling asleep. “Then I sometimes see the polar bears in the decaying windows in front of my eyes.”